Issue price – Newspaper Kommersant No. 209 (7410) dated 11/11/2022
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Globalization has been the main trend in the development of the global automotive industry. As a result, historically, the Russian automotive industry was also focused on integration into global supply chains. However, now, against the backdrop of sanctions restrictions and the withdrawal of foreign companies from the market, the Russian car market will move towards maximum technological independence and localization. In general, this applies not only to Russia – many developing countries with a more or less capacious car market will move along the path of technological independence.
In the short term, this has a negative effect. So, the result of the reorientation “inside” will be a shortage of cars due to the restructuring of supply chains, the search for alternative suppliers, and so on. There will also be a noticeable gap in the offer: it will be concentrated in the most budget class and the premium segment. In the middle price segment, demand can be partially satisfied by imported products.
In addition, due to disruptions in production chains, a separate short-term shock will be a decrease in quality against the backdrop of rising prices. The leveling of this shock can be associated both with the development of national suppliers of components (a priority model in the long term), and with the development of parallel imports or reorientation to new suppliers.
From a technological point of view, during the transition to technological independence, it is advisable to focus on the development of promising products – electric and hydrogen vehicles, LNG vehicles, etc. However, from the point of view of localization, it will still not be possible to focus on one direction. It is necessary both to refine the components for automobiles (internal combustion engines, gearboxes, ABS and others necessary in the short term), and to develop promising technologies that will determine the competitiveness of Russian products in eight to ten years.
The feasibility of localization depends on several factors, including the availability of demand sufficient to pay off the project. At the same time, it should be taken into account that consumer demand for cars in the short term will be weak, since real incomes of the population do not increase, the debt load is growing and the cost of car loans is also quite high. Under such conditions, the growth of the carsharing market can be expected, as the cost of owning a personal car has increased, which makes carsharing a more attractive solution to the problem of transportation.
Also, for localization, it is important to take into account the availability of technologies for transfer (what is the probability of mastering them in the short term), the availability of alternative suppliers (how difficult it is to find a new supplier of the corresponding component) and the criticality of a particular component for the final product. In segments where localization projects pay off, it is enough to support private initiative: give tax deductions, preferential loans, support demand. In the rest of the segments, the decision to support should be made based on the criticality of the technology.
If the sanctions are lifted and foreign manufacturers decide to return, then, I believe, the conditions for them will be more stringent: there should be requirements for the integration of Russian component manufacturers, the creation of R&D centers, the transfer of intellectual property rights, and so on – closer to the Chinese way.
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